


History Went by Without You

by WolfOfAnsbach



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, World War II, carmilla gets out of her grave, historical fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 10:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4344458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfOfAnsbach/pseuds/WolfOfAnsbach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla rises from her seventy year underground imprisonment and hitches a ride to Vienna with a retreating squad of Waffen-SS troops, who are somewhat perplexed by her lack of knowledge about the present day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	History Went by Without You

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize that this has no other characters from this show.

It is dusk when Karl sees her.

She stands at the side of the dusty country road, long black tresses framing a pale yet lovely face. Great dark eyes follow the battered truck as it makes its way towards Vienna, and her mouth opens to call out to the soldiers within.

“Hail!”

Karl adjusts his helmet, and fiddles with the twin lightning bolts blazoned on his uniform’s collar.

“Captain…” he says, tentatively. “Shall we stop for her?”

The captain does not turn to face Karl. He keeps his back to him, eyes focused on the long, desolate road ahead.

“We’ve no room, _Sturmann_.”

Karl pauses. Two years ago he would not have even considered questioning a superior officer. But what does it matter now? They flee like rats in their own land, chased by Stalin’s relentless war machine. What will it cost him?

“With all due respect, captain, we’ve plenty of room.” He sweeps his arm in an arc around the truck’s bed. Indeed, any man could see he spoke the truth. There is room in the vehicle for six more, at least. When they had rolled out of Vienna a year ago, this truck, and hundreds of others identical to it, had been filled to bursting. Now those surplus troops lay dead in the snows of Russia, or the mountains of Romania, or the fields of Hungary.

Yes, there is plenty of room.

“We are not stopping, _Sturmann_.”

“What then? We leave her to the mercy of the Russians? You might as well shoot her yourself.”

The captain still neglects to turn. His jaw twitches. He adjusts the peaked cap on his head, fidgeting with the silver eagle sewn onto it.

For a moment, Karl wonders if the captain will have _him_ shot.

Then he nods at the driver, a short, stocky fellow named Hermann, and the truck rolls to a stop before the girl.

Karl reaches a hand out to her.

“We are going to Vienna.”

She takes his hand in hers, and using the truck’s wheel as leverage, hoists herself up into the bed. One of the soldiers silently moves aside to make room for their new traveling companion.

None speaks.

In the far corner of the truck bed lie three men, bandaged so heavily that only one’s face is visible. Their uniforms are torn, soaked with blood, and every so often an awful whimper or moan escapes their lips. Not a one of their comrades expects them to last the night.

Karl takes a moment to wonder why the girl’s eyes are so inexorably drawn to these bloody wrecks of men.

And that is not all he wonders.

For the first time he notices just how odd this girl’s manner of dress is. Her skirts and corset are like something from another time, like one of the old paintings from his late grandmother’s mountain cottage come to life. She tears her gaze from the wounded man and meets Karl’s light blue eyes with her dark brown ones.

He gives her a forced smile.

The fact that she is streaked with dirt, and even what appears to be splotches of blood, is not in itself so strange. So many Germans, fleeing west before the advancing Red Army, fare just as well. There is no time to rest, little time to eat or catch even minutes of sleep, they are kept moving by nightmarish visions of what the Soviet soldiers will to any German unfortunate enough to fall into their blood-drenched hands. It is no surprise that her clothes are in such a condition.

“What is your name, fräulein?” Karl asks in the cheeriest voice he can muster.

The girl sets her graceful, defined jaw and gives him something almost resembling a smile.

“Carmilla.”

“A very fine name. I am Karl. Are you heading to Vienna as well, Carmilla?”

“Now I am.”

He forces another smile.

They drive on, not another word from him, Carmilla, or any of his comrades, for what seems like hours more.

Then she speaks again.

“What is the year?”

Karl furrows his brow in confusion. Are these Styrian peasants truly so detached from the world at large, to not know even the date?

“It’s…well, 1945.”

“Germany is still united, yes? Who sits on her throne?”

“Sits on her…”

This is too much. Chronological ignorance is one thing, but she must surely be jesting with him now. Else she has taken a particularly hard hit on the head.

“There has been no Kaiser since the second Wilhelm…since the Great War…fräulein…are you well?”

“I should think so” she replies, a smile now playing on her lips.

_Her dialect._

It must be a regional difference, Karl reasons. But still…it is so odd…familiar. It reminds him of the manner in which the old men in his village would speak, when they congregated in the town square to reminisce about the war against the French when he was a child.

“Whence do you hail, if you don’t mind me asking?”

She waves a hand lazily through the darkening evening air.

“Around here…not far…”

Karl nods, and falls silent again.

The truck rolls on, and the sun slowly sinks beneath the rolling Styrian fields.

He begins to sing quietly, an old song from his days in training. At the time it had been rousing, meant to inspire patriotic fervor and nationalistic courage. Now, as they fled before Russian troops, broken and battered, hoping to stave off their inevitable defeat as long as possible, its words seem almost mocking.

 _“The way which we go is always forwards, and the devil is laughing with us, we’re fighting for Deutschland, we’re fighting for Hitler, we won’t give the reds any rest_ ”.

“Who are these Reds? Your enemies?”

Frederick tears his eyes from his boots, to which they’ve been glued for the past hour of the journey, to regard Carmilla.

“Is this girl mad? Have you not noticed we are at war? Have you spent the last twenty years in hole in the ground somewhere? The Reds! The Russians! The Communists!”

 

Carmilla scowls. It has proven a bit difficult to extract information pertinent to the current state of the world and the changes it has undergone in the past few decades. Evidently, Bismarck’s gamit proved a success, and the Germany he welded together remains a united nation. Just as evidently, this united Germany is at war with Russia. A Russia which has, for whatever reason, come to be associated with the color red. Not a bad color, in her opinion.

Her arm hangs over the side of the vehicle, stroking its metal, bullet-scarred flank.

And evidently, horseless carriages have been devised.

How novel.

_1945._

It’s been seventy years since mother cast her into that goddamned pit.

The number swims through her head, gnawing at her.

_1945…1945._

It’s 1945 and no Emperor reigns in Germany. It’s 1945 and the cart truly does go before the horse. It’s 1945 and she’s still here.

When she last saw a soldier he was marching off to smash the forces of Napoleon III. His helmet was topped by a steel spike and blazoned with the eagle of the house of Hohenzollern, his tunic dyed a deep Prussian blue, saber rattling on his hip, black boots freshly polished and shining in the sun, and a breech-loading rifle with bayonet fixed slung over his shoulder.

These men…one could tell perhaps they descended from that same military tradition, but at once they were worlds away. Their helmets have been stripped of any royal heraldry and of their once trademark spikes, instead decorated only with two twin lightning bolts blazoned on the temple, the same to be found on each man’s collar. Their uniforms, rather than a dark blue, are a mottled patchwork of greys, browns, and dark greens, reminiscent of a forest in autumn. Not a man, not even he who was evidently in command at the head of the vehicle sports a sword, and the firearms they carry are strange to say the least. Compact little weapons with short barrels and no stocks to speak of, made almost entirely of metal, with few wooden components in sight.

She casts a glance once more towards the wounded men in the corner of the vehicle. Carmilla can smell the overpowering, intoxicating scent of their blood, and she realizes just how hungry she is.

“When we get to Vienna, what then?” She asks.

One of the soldiers, a big fellow with a nasty scar across the right side of his face, cracks a sad smile.

“We can hope to God the Americans get to us before the Russians.”

Carmilla’s ensuing laugh is likely not appreciated by her traveling companions.

“The United States? Here? They managed to get across the ocean? They got past the British?”

She lets loose another barrage of giggles at the thought of the United States, which last she heard was busy tearing itself apart over the issue of slavery, ever fielding an army in Europe. What a world she had awoken to!

“They are…allies with the British. Strong ones” Karl replies, confusion evidently growing.

“Really? Well, it’s nice to know they’ve patched things up since that whole...independence debacle. Not to mention that nastiness in 1812.”

“Nice to-They’ve destroyed our nation, they’ve made common cause with the Bolshevist bastards in Moscow, they will be the death of Germany!”

Carmilla gives him a half smile.

“I’ve heard that a dozen times. If Germany survived Napoleon and 1848, certainly she can survive the Tsar’s armies. Kings rise, kings fall, armies march and die, but the world spins on.”

Carmilla leans back against the walls of the truck bed.

“All we can do is enjoy the ride.”

Karl stares, open-mouthed.

“The _Tsar’s_ armies? The Tsar…it’s been years since....the Tsar…never mind.”

His head dropped.

None spoke the rest of the way to Vienna.


End file.
